Insect protective garments are known in the prior art. These garments are intended to protect the user's head or body against insects.
Examples of insect protective garments in the prior art are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,203,155 (Strout); 1,802,262 (Mahler); 2,028,947 (Palm); 2,189,892 (Fox); 2,280,668 (Sherlock); 2,365,656 (Lamsa); 2,472,033 (Wetzel); 2,784,409 (Slipakoff); 2,869,132 (Drummond); 3,582,989 (Fassbender); 3,783,451 (Malin); and 4,422,184 (Myers). These patents are relevant to the invention disclosed herein because they represent the closest prior art in the attempt to make insect protective garments that can be worn comfortably in hot climates.
For a garment to be worn comfortably in hot climates, adequate ventilation must be provided. All of the examples cited as prior art, as well as the invention disclosed herein, rely on insect protective mesh for air circulation around the user's skin. If insect protective mesh is to do its job adequately, it must, in some way, be made to lie far enough away from the user's skin so that a barrier that is greater in width than the length of the insects' stingers is created. In other words, the problem in making insect protective garments from mesh is how to keep said mesh away from the user's skin.
Those inventions cited as examples in the prior art that deal with the problem of keeping the mesh away from the user's skin rely on bubble shaped forms made of rigid mesh to keep the insects stingers away or they rely on rigid forms such as hats or visors to make a ledge to drape the mesh from, or they rely on devices such as inflatable tubes, coils of rope, or plastic discs to act as spacers between the mesh and the user's skin.
None of the above inventions disclose a way to keep the protective mesh away from the user's body in a flexible and durable garment that follows the body's natural contours and is free of devices.